Dead Loves

WHENE'ER I think of old loves wall and dead,
Of passion's wine outpoured in senseless dust,
Of doomed affection's and long-buried trust,
Through all my soul an arctic gloom is shed;
And ah! I walk the world disquieted.
Thou, my own love! white lily of April! must
Thy beauty, perfume, radiance, all be thrust
Earthward, to crumble in a grass-grown bed?
Yea, sweet, 'tis even so! How long, how long
The dust of her who once was tender Ruth,
Hath mouldered dumbly! And how oft the clod,
Which binds, like hers, all perished love and truth,
Strives with pale weeds to veil death's hopeless wrong,
Or through chill lips of flowers appeals to God!